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You Can't Make This Shit Up

Posted by Nick Schou in Crime & Sex

September 6, 2007 4:04 PM

Permalink | Comments (5)

I don't know why--probably just to make sure I'm not missing any important updates on the latest south county exit poll nobody cares about or to get my daily fix of aerial photographs of toll road construction--but I tend to visit OC Blog every day. Actually the real reason I go there is they occasionally link to one of my stories, often with a snarky aside.

I digress.

Fact is you never know what brilliant untold tales--written by genuinely dispassionate Republican Party operatives--you'll find on OC Blog. Why just today, I discovered that one of the nicest places criminals could hope to find is our very own Orange County jail system. Imagine that!

And I thought the Orange County jail system was kinda....what's the word...deadly? What was I thinking? Maybe I was thinking of this?

Anyways, thank god for bloggers like Jonathan Constantine and Matt Cunningham (who writes under the byline Jubal). They know that to get to the truth of life behind bars in the OC, you need to go to jail. So they did just that. In fact, and for good measure, they took an official tour of the Men's Central Jail and concluded that the place ain't so bad after all.

"Despite being somewhat outdated at the men's central complex, the Orange County correction system is a buttoned-up operation which has such an efficient level of procedure that its order pre-empts the typical prison violence seen in other prisons throughout the United States," Constantine writes. "Sheriffs deputies, I was told, rarely ever have to resort to agressive force."

But wait, there's more: "While the cells aren't much to look at, prisoners are treated with relative respect by the deputies who police the facility (after all, they are criminals). They are given at least 8 hours per week of recreational time, and can even engage in religious ceremony from visiting clergy. Overall, I believe the people of Orange County can be proud of the competence of our law enforcement, and rest assured of their tax dollars at work."

I don't know what's more amazing: the fact that Constantine and Cunningham charmed sheriff's deputies at the jail into divulging the explosive fact that they "rarely" resort to using force, or the fact that the Sheriff's department didn't pay OC Blog for the press release.

Despite their hard-hitting expose, it seems OC Blog's blogging duo will continue to have access to the jail facility. "Stay tuned," Contantine writes, "as I will post an analysis of the jail's new ICE program, a critique of the linear men's complex, and the benefits of the modular prison topography."

 

Comments (5)

  1. Alex Brant-Zawadzki says:
    September 6, 2007 20:10

    I wonder when they'll get to the part where all the deputies fucking hate the new fingerprinting system because you have to hold the inmate's hand on it JUST SO for it to get the proper reading. No simple ink-em-and-we're-done anymore.
    Not only does it waste valuable police time ... but our poor criminals have to stand there for minutes at a time actually holding HANDS with cops.

  2. G.Jones says:
    September 7, 2007 20:45

    That really was a classic and klassy OC Blog post. It ought to be enshrined in some kind of something somewhere.

    And I loved how Matt "outed" one of the commenters who disagreed with him. Way to increase the echo-chamber effect, boyo!

  3. G. Jones says:
    September 8, 2007 18:50

    Update: Matt apologized for outing the commenter, which he said he did accidentally.

  4. Jubal says:
    September 27, 2007 23:37

    Hey Nick. I read your post. It reminded you still write for the Weekly. No actual information, just attitude, snarkiness and general ignorance. But then -- why should I expect anything different?

    Other than getting arrested, can you point me to how to obtain an unofficial tour of the jail? Have you employed your super-sleuthing skills to wangle one?

    OC Central Jail is not a nice place. It's not supposed to be, It's a jail. In the newer modular section, you can see how it would be very difficult for inmates to injure each other or a deputy, because they are constantly being watched, and they are only two to a cel.

    In the older part of the jail, the more traditional linear design with rows of cels, you can see how it is more difficult to control inmate behavior -- even though they have no privacy -- you can see how it would also be difficult to figure out who did what to whom should violence occur.

    From what I saw, the deputies treated the prisoners relatively. They didn't smile at them and serve them cupcakes. They were direct, businesslike and short. But then again, they're dealing with criminals.

    But if it makes you feel better, I am sorry for going on a tour of the jail in order to gain a better understanding of how it works.

  5. Nick Schou says:
    September 28, 2007 08:48

    Hey Matt,

    Yes I did employ my super sleuth skills to obtain a jail tour, of Theo Lacy, not the central jail. You can read about it here:

    http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/open-big-house/20518/

    As you'll see if you read the above story I would tend to agree with you that most deputies are no-nonsense but professional when it comes to dealing with inmates. But the story lets the facts speak for themselves and it didn't particularly please the Sheriff's dept. As to your comment that my writing is all attitude and no facts or information, that's true about the blog post you reference, but not of my reporting in general, which has led to officials (HB mayor Pam Houchen) going to prison and wrongfully convicted people being released.

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